Episode 1082
First, apologies for the song that will be stuck in your head for at least a week. Blame the chat room. In the news today, the T-Mobile Sidekick outage, the ongoing Facebook outage, the IBM outage that briefly crippled Air New Zealand, and the unbelievable failure that is the PSP Go launch. It's a fun show. Stories Covered T-Mobile: We probably lost all your Sidekick data http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/10/t-mobile-we-probably-lost-all-your-sidekick-data/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10372521-1.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10372525-56.htm http://www.hiptop3.com/archives/what-caused-the-sidekick-fail/ http://samj.net/2009/10/if-its-dangerous-its-not-cloud.html Downed Facebook accounts still haven’t returned http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10372417-36.html Amateur’ IBM brings down Air New Zealand http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/12/ibm_new_zealand/ PSP Go launch has become a nightmare for gamers, Sony http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/10/psp-go-launch-has-become-a-nightmare-for-gamers-sony.ars FCC to investigate Google Voice call blocking http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100904385.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10372521-1.html Study: 54 percent of companies ban Facebook, Twitter at work http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/study-54-of-companies-ban-facebook-twitter-at-work/ BSA: 41 percent of software on personal computers is pirated http://www.net-security.org/secworld.php?id=8325 LG’s new twist on e-readers: Solar power! http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10372744-1.html Hadron Collider physicist arrested on terrorism charges http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10372398-71.html Voicemail Anonymous Linux dude: how about a streamlined OS? #nerdsnort Emails Hi Guys and Girls This new Lightpeek standard sounds awesome but when you’re heads down, bum up in a dark corner because one cable is too short and the network, monitor, mouse and keyboard cables all look the same I think I’ll want to strangle someone. There’s a certain elegance in having a network cable that looks completely different to a DVI cable because my monitor doesn’t understand TCP/IP and my switch won’t go 1080p. Cheers Craig ---- Hello Buzzies! First: Happy Canadian Thanksgiving, and Happy American Columbus Day! On another note however I would like to say why the Amazon Kindle sucks overseas. Don’t get me wrong I love the idea of the Kindle, built in 3G, buy books as you go and it works everywhere! However if I would like one in the Netherlands (and Europe for that matter) I have to buy it from Amazon.com and I have to pay in American Dollars. Which isn’t to bad, heck the Euro/Dollar exchange rate is awesome at the moment. But here come the terrible parts: Although Amazon says it works overseas you have to keep this in mind: - Ships with American Plug/adapter - 20$ Shipping - 60$ import costs - Works through ATT Roaming partners, but you don’t have any roaming costs (that is what Amazon says, they say US customers overseas pay 1.99$, but say other countries are free). In reality though, the books (which you also have to pay in American $) are more expensive in the European Kindle store than in the US kindle store. - Newspapers are full price, but don’t get delivered with Images and charts (saving bandwidth) - The blogs feature is disabled (couldn’t care less) - The experimental browser is disabled (yes this does suck) The part that hurts most is the ‘premium’ on books even though Amazon says no roaming fees (and don’t give the ‘tax’ excuse, because if that is the case, there would be a Kindle store for every country, instead of just for Europe. And the part that if I want a newspaper I don’t get the pretty images and graphs. What’s the point of a newspaper if they can’t show me any Pie charts? Amazon did a lousy job, and wants to be easy by making a deal with ATT Worldwide instead of making deals with carriers in every country. What they probably should have done was introduce a Wi-Fi Kindle. And release Kindles with 3G when they had deals in those countries. I also came across another artist that is spreading his music through the Radiohead model, 'pay what you want $0 is good too'. The artist name is 'Yellowgold' never heard anything about him, but his new album 'The Mellower' is awesome! You can find it here: http://www.yellowgoldmusic.com/ . Good stuff! Just my 2 cents! Alex ---- Barnes and Noble creating an android based e-book reader? More like Barnes and Noble creating the first Android based tablet. Google not only gets it’s hand into the e-book market after they have digitized books, but they also get the ability to test and review their android software on non-phone hardware. You can almost guarantee this device will not only read books but allow users to listen to mp3s, browse the Internet via wifi/chrome, and download all apps from the android marketplace. Knowing Google, they will also include you-tube functions as well as the ability to post on blogs and subscribe to rss feeds. Ccarline After The Credits